Was my heart supposed to hurt like this? “Not everything, I hope.”
Jonah turned to me, one cheek hitching up in a grave half-smile. “No, not everything.” His nostrils flared at the same time his other cheek started to go up too.
“Had you even thought about having kids?” I asked him, realizing I had no idea how he’d felt about it.
His features got thoughtful for a moment. “I never thought about it much. I have a big family… but I think I would have been happy.”
I gave him a flat look that had him giving me a slightly amused but pained one.
“All right, I would have been worried too, maybe even a bit scared, but I liked you so much….”
I barely managed to keep the snort to myself. Sure, he’d like me so much. He had liked me so much he hadn’t reached out to me, regardless of how often he’d thought about me and how crazy he claimed he had been over me. But I was going to ignore that slight pain. I wasn’t going to think about it. His career had been the most important part of his life. There was no competition there, and I understood it.
You couldn’t change a person’s priorities. I couldn’t make myself more important. I was lucky enough to have been so high up on at least two other people’s lists.
“I like you so much,” he amended while I kicked my thoughts aside. “It would have been fine. I would have been there, here, wherever you were.”
Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.
And then there was that present tense.
“I’m sorry again for the things my mum said today. She thinks she means well, even when she meddles and says things—”
“She’s just watching out for you,” I told him. “She doesn’t know me, and I’m sure you’ve had more than enough girls throwing themselves at you before because they know who you are.” And because of that ass. And that face. And all those muscles. But he didn’t need an ego boost right then, or ever, so I didn’t mention any of that. Much less all the good parts that weren’t visible to the naked eye, like his personality.
He had made a face when I said the last sentence, and I couldn’t help but snicker at it.
“I’ve grown up around men in the spotlight, jackass. I’m not stupid.”
Jonah let out a suffering sigh that made me snort, and I could tell he was fighting back a small grin that he wasn’t totally feeling. “Did you not hear what my sister said?”
“What? About you being shy? I was going to ask you about that. You talked to me like nothing from the moment we met.” I’d thought about that period again in the afternoon while I’d been with just Mo. Jonah had instantly started talking to me, smiling, being playful and teasing….
And just… maybe a little bashful, a little more easygoing by not being aggressive or cocky.
But we’d never struggled to talk or get along. He had been the one who invited me to go to dinner after our tour. The one who had asked me for my number so we could go to the Louvre together. He was the one who’d posted a picture of us together hours after we’d met.
The point was, he had never been shy around me. He had never used that ultra-quiet voice in my presence. But I’d witnessed it around others. I really hadn’t thought much of it when we would go out to eat and he’d lower his voice or just tell me what it was he wanted.
And based on the face that he was making, he was struggling with explaining it, which was actually just more proof that he might be. “I’ve always struggled with strangers,” he admitted with a half-smile. “I didn’t start speaking until I was three. Mum had to take me to therapy for it. Then, when I did start talking, it was only around my family. In school, some of the boys, and the girls, teased me over it, and that made me want to say things less, I reckon.”
The urge to go back in time and kick a bunch of little kids in the ass was really strong then.
Jonah gave me a twisted smile in the darkness of Mo’s bedroom. “I told you I was this skinny wee thing. No girls liked me back then, and I’ll tell you that messes with a mate’s head. It changes the way you see things and people when you get teased for being yourself, like you’ve got some other choice in the matter. Once I grew, everything changed. The only thing that made me special to other people was my size and being good at footy. So, yeh. I had a hard time with people I didn’t know then, and now it’s worse, you know. Not just with talking, but with trusting another person to do… things like that with.”
That? Sex?
And seriously, what asshole had been teasing him back in the day for being skinny and little?
He couldn’t read my mind, so he didn’t answer or explain, but he did keep moving right along. “Everyone is out for fame or for more than that. If I told you the stories I’ve heard about the things some women have done… asking for money, tampering with protection, phone footage…”
Unfortunately, I knew all about that.
“Women don’t want me because they know me, Lenny,” he explained softly. “They only see the jersey. Not me.” He paused. “I’m sure you know that with all your manly knowledge.”
“My manly knowledge?” was what my mouth repeated.
And it made Jonah smile like he hadn’t just told me about being teased for the things he couldn’t change as a kid and how it had affected him then and even now as an adult. He could go out there and play in front of thousands and thousands of people, but talking to strangers was what made his balls sweat. Because somewhere deep down inside, he expected them to make fun of him too, I guessed.
And I couldn’t remember the last time something had touched me so deeply.
Or made me want to protect him that much more.
How hard must it be for him to play this sport he loved, be so good at it and popular, and get so much negative shit for it at the same time? It made sense now more than ever why he had fallen into such a black hole after his injury. Because of how other people had made him feel. Because they had made him think the only special thing about him was rugby. Hadn’t his own mom brought that up during lunch multiple times? His career and success?
This fucking man.
I didn’t know how someone I still wanted to hate could slip so deeply under my ribs. I really didn’t.
“You said it,” Jonah quietly teased back after a moment. “You grew up around professional athletes. You know what it’s like for us.”
I scowled at him.
He smiled. “But I don’t want to talk about that anymore, eh. My mum was awful to you, and that’s what’s important. It’s my fault, Len. All I told her was that I was off to holiday once the season ended. All I was expecting was to come and talk to you and see if you could forgive me.”
I swallowed his words and tried to process what they meant.
“Then you told me about Mo and….” His plans had changed. His life had. I got it. “She was upset when I mentioned I was spending the rest of my time here instead of going back to En Zed. I was going to explain, but… I just wanted to enjoy this as much as I could. She must have known something was going on because she called every day. Most I’ve talked to her since I was a boy.” The hand he had on the crib slid a few inches to the side. Closer to my own hand. “She came without warning me. I finally posted on Picturegram while working out and didn’t realize the location had been tagged. That’s how she found out where I was. She had no idea about Mo. No idea about you. Until now.”